


Grey cold Inferno

by TargaryenPug



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Cinematic Universe, DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017), Man of Steel (2013), Suicide Squad (2016), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: After Life, Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Apokolips, Canon Temporary Character Death, Chato Santana Lives, Clark Kent is Alive, Limbo, My First Fanfic, My First Work in This Fandom, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Source (DC Comics), Ultimate Sacrifice, Underworld, Work In Progress, but I'll get better I promise, but they are comming back, in the afterwold, sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:58:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11599212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TargaryenPug/pseuds/TargaryenPug
Summary: “Do you think this is hell?” asked Superman.“Do you believe in hell?” asked El Diablo“Do you?”“A man they called ´El Diablo´ is ought to believe in hell,” said Chato.A story in which El Diablo and Superman do their daring escape from death to come back into the world, because damn it I need them both.may not be good, but damn it's a passion project of mine.





	1. Nervous empty limbo.

**Author's Note:**

> Here it goes, Like stated a million times before, I am new to this, so if you are one of the 3 people reading this besides me, be gentle.  
> also, I have no Idea where it may go, we will find out that while the series progresses.

Clark had a strange sensation when he woke up, his body was lighter than it has ever been, the air itself felt almost too light, the atmosphere there was strange.  
He noticed that there was nothing there, besides air, not ground, not color, not light, no smells, no sound…except that he produced, he could see his hands, perfectly well, he could hear his own voice, it even made eco, but besides he there was nothing there.  
Somehow, he wondered for a while, floating like a ghost around the strange place he was in…he had his watch in his hand but it never moved, it wasn’t broken or anything it was just frozen.  
As if time couldn’t progress there, and maybe it wasn’t. he wandered for long but he never seemed to reach anywhere.  
Since his watch wasn’t working he had to make the counting in his head, and it was odd to him, very odd.  
Way too odd.  
After what seemed like 12 hours of mental counting he was beginning to lose hope, until he heard another voice.  
Someone was shouting in both English and Spanish from far, it was an unknown voice, but it was a human voice nevertheless and right now, he needed any sort of contact.

  
“Here!” He shouted, loud, loud enough to be heard two blocks away under regular circumstances.  
“Hola! I’m sorry about that, I thought I was going mad Homes, like seriously batshit crazy—  
said the man, this man was a short man, bald, covered from head to toes in tattoos, his face tattoos somewhat resembled a skull, the rest of his visible skin, say neck, arms and hands, also had all sort of crazy gang tattoos, Clark never seen one of those, but then again, he was a farm boy, and he never stayed anywhere too long, so maybe he did.  
“Yeah, I know, I’m just glad there is another person here or I too would go absolutely insane”—  
He could see a warm smile in the skeleton man’s face, so he decided to introduce himself to the stranger.  
“I’m Clark”  
“I’m Chato”  
Clark slightly smiled at the mention of the name, he took Spanish in high school, he had something of a photographic memory and Chato wasn’t a name, it means “Flat face” like a bulldog or a pug.  
“Chato?”  
“Yeah homes, my old folks were big baseball fans, there was this player, right? Ernesto ´Chato´ Sanchez and apparently he was like a Maverick or somethin, and like, my dad spoke Spanish but my mom did not, so like, she agreed and all that”  
Clark laughed a little, under regular circumstances, no stranger on the street would have told him a personal story like that, but there seemed to be nobody else there but Chato and him.  
“How bout you?” asked Chato  
“It was my mother’s maiden name for what they tell me”  
Somehow, they managed to sit, right there in the nothing, neither could feel anything but they weren’t supposed to, Clark was dead, he remembered that much, he remembered getting impaled by Doomsday, he remembered feeling weakened by the green rock, he remembered the spear slicing his left cheek, he remembered the void. So, he assumed, that he would end up in hell, but there was nothing there, not a single of the promises that his childhood pastor had made during the sermon was there, there was no fire, there was no torture, there was no punishment for his crime, there was no demon…unless Chato was a demon of sorts, but for a demon he was nice, he was nicer than Batman, nicer than the media, he was rather kind once you got past his looks.  
He decided to talk some more, he felt like he hadn’t talked with anyone for a year and it was nice to finally be able to just sit down with somebody even if there was nothing to sit down on.  
“So, what you’d…did for a living?” asked Clark,  
“Man, like, honestly, nothing good, I should have ended up in hell, I was…I was sort of a banger, if you get my feeling, and like, at first I used to like it homie, but it took everything away from me I did some time not long after, I have done terrible things”  
Clark thought about Zod, about his father, about everyone he let down, about the building.  
“Yeah, I am no saint either, I…Have you ever killed anyone?” he asked.  
Then there was a silence, this short man stared at him, inexpressive, unsure about what to answer.  
“Yes” was his only answer.  
“Well so have I”  
The friendly social skeleton man quite suddenly looked grim, like struck by a lighting.

  
“You don’t look like the type”  
“Is there a type?”  
“Yes” said Chato, “And you are looking at it”.  
“My first was in juvie, it was an accident, I was trying to defend myself and there were bigger and stronger than I was, I wanted to take them off me and then I bursted into flames, just like that, they became crisps and I wasn’t sure of what to do, they let me go not soon after, they thought it was an accident, a gas leak, and growing up I did the only thing a teenager with a record could do (or what I thought could do), I joined a gang, I was rather good at it, Anyone who defied me ended up as ashes I could just flame up anyone right there and because of it they called me “El Diablo”, and my usual activities usually ended up in dead people, almost never used my gun, but I left crisps often. And I grew and I became good at it and suddenly I was ‘El Jefe’. And sometime after I found a woman and I made kids, and in an attack of anger I turned them into crisps too, I surrendered to the cops but I got jumped in prison again, and bursted into flames…again, I killed the two thousand inmates that where at the yard, before I ended up in Belle Reeve”  
He took a minute to be silent.  
“What could you have done that was as terrible?”  
“Well I killed a man once, the other last member of my people, he was going to kill so many more people, he was at it, and I did the only thing I could…I snapped his neck”  
Chato immediately realized who he was talking to, he saw that event in the news, all over it, a guard showed it to him in the screen of his smartphone.  
Oh shit! It was him…  
“And I was too close to almost kill another man, because…because they had my mother”  
“Oh shit! are you? … are you Superman?” asked Chato, a bit incredulous and a bit hoping that the answer was no.  
“That’s what they called me, yes”  
They both stared at each other in silence, with sharp looks of incredulity, almost agonizing and out of orbit.  
Neither of them realized that the other had superpowers when they met, as a matter of fact neither knew that the other would have been someone like this.  
But they quickly disposed of their disbelief, after all, both where in a place that defied logic almost completely, a strange has not of a place that had absolutely nothing but themselves.

 

  
“Do you think this is hell?” asked Superman.  
“Do you believe in hell?” asked El Diablo  
“Do you?”  
“A man they called ´El Diablo´ is ought to believe in hell” said Chato.  
“But I do not think this is it, this…this must be purgatory or something”  
Superman thought about it, he was indeed dead, and apparently so was Chato.  
“Maybe it’s another dimension”  
“Maybe” agreed Chato.  
“So, either we go to hell or we go to heaven or we search for a way out of this dimension”  
“You ain’t going to hell man, I am almost sure of it…and who knows? It could be some weird matrix shit”  
“Have you tried using your powers here?” asked Superman.  
“No…you?”  
“No”

 

So, they tried to do the one thing they didn’t tried to do from the beginning, and both had their powers, Chato could in fact, burst into flames...the curse he was sure, came with the devil himself, remained with him even in the afterlife. now, he didn't know if he should be thankful or not, but alas, it meant something, whatever this place was, it apparently didn't care to deal with their powers, as useless as they could be now that there was literally nothing there to be used on.

Since there was no floor in which Superman could fly above, or anything he could test his strength in, he decided to use the one power that he tried to avoid the most in life, his heat vision.  
He then launched a powerful blast above his head, proving two things, there was no ceiling, and he did still have his powers. strange, since it was the sun that gave him said powers (which apparently didn’t exist in whatever place they were in) and since it was now evident that they were in limbo.

 

And they had to get out.


	2. How to break the ceiling, with no ceiling.

They needed to get out, they both agreed on that.

 

Diablo was certain that he would end up in hell, but he preferred to get there before dinner.

They both knew they were dead, and somehow, they ended in a weird dimension of nothingness and madness…perhaps some sort of place before reaching whatever awaited for both of them.

He was also certain that his partner, the only other “human” company he had in that horrific place of nothingness, shouldn’t be trapped in whatever place they were in, he should go to some golden afterlife with puffy clouds, rivers of honey and milk, golden sidewalks and coconuts and shit.

Because between eternal torture and going completely insane, he preferred the first by leagues, Chato Santana never pretended to be a sane man, but he was somewhat saner than the mad world he had been thrown into, and he would like to remain the same in the afterlife.

 

 

“Ok, so we know we have our powers in here, which is weird, and we know that we have to break the fuck out of this _pedazo de mierda_ of place, or else both of us will go mad before reaching our final rest and all that” explained Chato.

“So” he continued “You have _Ojos de Fuego_ , or whatever your thing is called and I have my…curse, So I been thinking, maybe we should try to combine our powers to see if we get any reaction” said Chato.

“So” said Clark “You suggest that we both use our powers at the same time to see if we get any sort of reaction that could lead to get us away from this place” Said Clark, trying to understand what Diablo meant, it wasn’t too difficult to get but he wanted to be sure that he got it right before they tried anything.

Under regular circumstances, that would have sounded like a really stupid plan, but there was no house, building or farm near them likewise there was no children, elderly or disabled people nearby, just them two…still Clark wanted to be cautious.

“ _Si_ , pretty much, but at a single point or whatever…maybe if we do that…” 

“We might generate enough energy to cause some sort of reaction or breach…it…it might work but it might not” Clark said, completing Chato's sentence.

 

 

Superman charged his eyebeams as hot as he has ever set his eyes before launching a heat beam, one of the advantages of this place was that heating his eyes didn’t hurt like it used to hurt on earth.

El Diablo bursted into flames but he charged and heated up his flames, holding them around himself, he holded the fire until it turned blue, a trick he had only tried once…it had ended in a complete disaster.

They counted a few minutes before finally releasing both of their powers onto a single spot, Clark’s heat vision crossed with Chato’s blue fire and somehow, even though there was literally nothing there but themselves, the single spot of that nothingness that had been the target of all their focused power, exploded.

The explosion hurled them both a long distance and they fell onto each other, they had no idea how but somehow, Clark had hit his head and Chato hit Clark’s belly with his head, which was harder than steel.

Chato used to play some football in high school and he used to crash a lot against hard objects, in juvie he had to fight some people and that sometimes meant he would be hit with the wall, or a pipe and after he had worked in a mechanic workshop and hit himself with several auto parts…but Clark was harder than any of that, it really hurtled to be slammed against him.

 

 

Both with several degrees of pain, managed to stand up.

“Did that work?” asked Clark.

“I don’t think so” said Chato.

Until they both saw a fading light way, way far from where they stood.

They walked towards it, and the more they did so, the more the light became shinier and began to have a more defined shape.

They continued walking, and continued and continued.

Until they reached what seemed to be a crack, it had the shape of a wall crack but it was shining.

A shining crack on the nothingness.

They stared at each other for a while.

It worked, the crazy, stupid idea they had conceived from a crazy, stupid situation that defied even the weirdest most fucked thing they had both been through, worked.

The idea to just throw a bunch of energy to the nothingness, worked and there was a crack in the same nothingness, a crack that glowed and resembled a wall crack, to prove such.

So they did it again, they aimed at the crack and again threw their heat vision and fire respectively. And the crack grew, in fact each time that they decided to do it again the crack grew and grew, until it quite simply collapsed, the now enormous light crack shined enough to blind their sight.

A sudden growth of light blinded them both entirely, they began to hear a noise as well, a loud pitch that made it impossible to hear anything else.

But suddenly the light was gone, and the noise was gone too.

 

 

 

No longer were they in the nothingness.


	3. Are we in hell?

They were both relieved that they had some sort of ground to walk in, just being into an eternal nothingness could have made them both insane, but this place wasn’t any sort of paradise either.  
Don’t get it wrong, it was by miles an upgrade from their previous situation, but it wasn’t ideal in any sort of way.

  
It all followed a sort of broken sideway that resembled pretty much a neighborhood, but out of the huge cracks emanated a sort of red light, there were several chunks of land, islands if you will, just floating above them each had just outside them but close enough, a huge neon arrow that pointed at them, none of these arrows connected to anything, or even touching the ground.  
On the ground, there was a small cottage that resembled a lot like Clark’s house when he was growing up in Smallville and another one, just in front of it, that looked exactly like Chato’s old house, the one he burned to the ground.  
They both noticed a small fishing boat coming at them, floating just a few centimeters from the floor, very slowly but somewhat steady in the ship there was a young woman in a toga, that seemed strangely familiar to both but neither of them recognized her. This woman, was a tall strawberry-blonde with muscular arms and a skin of the color of barley. She reminded Clark a little of Diana.  
Coming with her was also a woman of black hair in a long robe and a short muscular man with no hair but with flaming eyes.  
As soon as the ship got but five feet in front of them, they released the anchor which split the ground surrounding it, the first woman got off that ship while the man and the other woman, stayed at the ship.

 

 

  
“Congratulations! You made it!” said the woman “We were beginning to believe that you wouldn’t but alas, here you are, proud and standing” she continued  
“However your work is not yet done, as it turns out you both are needed elsewhere, in the world of the living, so you have a mission to return”  
Added, yet, the woman.  
Diablo got closer to the ship almost to the point of touching it, and close enough to be able to stare at the woman in the face, he preferred to look at people’s eyes when speaking to them.  
“To return? How? Where exactly are we and how do we go home? Or hell for that matter? Why do the living need him? why do the living need ME?” he asked.  
“All of those good questions” said the woman.  
Superman decided to get close too, to stand next to Diablo.  
“You were in limbo, neither of you were considered to be rotten or cruel enough to be sent to hell (any of them), and we requested you to be given a chance to be brought back to your world, this place is the place where all universes are connected, all worlds and all dimensions, it is fueled by the energy of every light of the spectrum, to go home…” she looked up and pointed at one of the floating islands “You must go there” she continued “which will lead you to the land of the living, but could land you in anywhere of the known universes or the unknown ones, normally we wouldn’t help you back to the world of the living, but a great evil is coming to your earth…” she then pointed at Clark “You are necessary to defeat him, in the great war to come” she said…before she could continue Clark interrupted.

 

“Necessary to defeat who?” the memory of Doomsday ripping apart his flesh with his bone claw remained burned in his head, it was unpleasant.  
“The messenger of the void, of war and death, the messenger of Apokolips” she said.  
“It is a matter of vital urgency for your world, and you are vital to stop it, because it will not be your only battle against him” she then pointed at Chato “You might even be necessary to stop the one who comes after, the god himself, because neither your friend here nor your friend’s friends will be enough to stop the following and you too may be needed”  
Great evil? More so than a witch? More so than Succubus and Incubus? And Croc? And Waller? And Himself? They must have been desperate if they needed someone like him to fight this horrific monster.

 

“Today you will rest, and tomorrow we shall sail, both of you will stay at that house over there…” she pointed at a house that was between Clark’s childhood house and Chato’s old place, it was rather average looking, both familiar and strange to them, like every other suburban house they have ever been into.  
A weird thought crossed Diablo’s mind however, why did they needed two dead guys to come back from the dead to defeat this terrible god of madness and death? Doesn’t earth has heroes of it’s own?

In Clark’s mind also raised the question as to why they needed two men that were recently deceased, maybe there was something else about it.

It didn’t matter much as both went to this place to rest, and continue their mission…hoping in part that it would give them both some answers, and their first night of good sleep after their death.


	4. Memories Astrange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Chato find themselves in an odd but familiar looking place, a combination of their hopes and memories and a place all too strange for anyone to remain too much time in.  
> They tried to get a good night of sleep before they can resume their journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, enjoy this chapter.
> 
> Ok, first of all, I'll like to say that Limbo does exist in the DC Multiverse, so I'm not entirely writing it out of my ass.
> 
> Second, I realize I haven't updated in like, forever, I know I am a slower writer than GRRM and that is saying a lot. Regardless, I do have an excuse...several in fact.
> 
> first.- College, I don't think I have to tell you how hard that is, but yeah, it kept me busy.
> 
> second.- Improv, I recently joined an Improv company to earn a little extra money and to explore my creative options and holy shit, I happen to be good at it...so it kept me busy for a few days
> 
> third.- We had two earthquakes, I'm sure you saw in the news the things about the earthquakes in Mexico City, It was chaos, it was panic and it sort of froze everyone in the city, myself included. Many lives were lost and many things are yet to be rebuilt, I volunteered for a few days but ultimately the rescue teams and the navy dispatched me so here I am...bon appetite.

****

The house seemed like it had been wrecked by a hurricane, there were several books but most of them on the floor and in disarray, there were holes in the walls and cracks of it and many shards of what seemed to be broken glass spread all across the floor. there was a table there, but it didn't look like it had been used in some time...neither had the old coffee mug with spider webs in it, that was casually rolling through the floor.

It was an illusion, they were, after all, trapped in what seems to be some cruel sort of punishment and afterlife, they knew it was created from their memories, they were in fact in limbo.

It made Chato miss prison; prison was dirty, gross, unhygienic and hostile, but somehow it was honest about it, prison didn't offer the cover of nostalgia, nor the feeling of dread and despair that ruins do. And it was indeed a ruin, not of some ancient pyramid, or temple or church, not of some palace or some kingdom, it wasn't a ruin of an ancient civilization...it was just the ruin of a common house,  maybe a bad neighborhood or maybe the American dream, it didn't matter though, because whatever it was struck closer to home.

 

 

Clark noted that the place was full of spider webs but had no spiders in it, it almost seemed unnatural, but then again it was.

He thought of himself with the spear on his chest, this time it wasn't Doomsday's it was someone else's, Batman's perhaps, or even that of the woman who was with them that fateful night. He shifted his thoughts than to his father, his old man, had he defied him, maybe he would have lived, had he done the right thing his father would be alive, maybe this was his punishment for doing nothing.

Chato grabbed the mug that had been rolling on the floor, he used his fire powers to burn the webs inside it. Fire could not clean the mug but it could very well cleanse it.

"You want some coffee or anything?"

Clark scratched the back of his head, he would kill for a glass of water, he could sell himself for some cheap gas station coffee, the sort of coffee he despised when he was a drifter, but the afterworld did not seem to have that.

"If you can find any, then yes"

 

 

Chato explored the house, it had indeed something that somewhat resembled a kitchen, everything there was rusty and dirty, except, oddly enough, for a coffee pot that was over a counter.

The coffee pot had a slim metallic body that shined almost like a new car. 

Chato felt trapped in a TV ad...somehow the place reminded him of his house before the incident. 

He plugged the coffee maker to the wall, and he managed to get some coffee out of it, he then split the coffee between two old and rusty pewter mugs that were casually left there on the counter, he began wondering why was the apparent second circle of hell, or limbo or whatever that place was going so out of its way to create something that resembled their lives on earth, something about it seemed wrong. almost by accident, he found a bag of instant ramen and a  pot of boiling water...it seemed almost as if they had been expected there, of course, the lady on the boat told them to get there, but ultimately, it seemed like someone had expected them, for a long time. Chato found himself wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of eternal torture designed to test their sanity by using its resemblance of their previous lives against them.

it was wrong.

 

 

Clark began to look for something they could sleep on, he knew there were a stair and rooms there, but they were blocked by debris...he could use his strength to remove said debris, but then the house would fall on them and Chato wasn't Kryptonian, so he had to at least try not to hurt the structure of the building. there was debris there too, too many of it. but he did manage to move some of it in such a way that they could sleep on it, he also found a couple of blankets and couch cushions that they could use. He began to think of his time as a fisherman, fondly, it lasted only a few months, he had at that time been homeless for over a year, and a small fishing boat would look like a welcomed change, it would have allowed him to reach north as he wanted to, and he wouldn't draw too much attention to himself. The house that they were in reminded him of his time as a homeless man, it managed to make him miss the fishing boat where he could have a roof over his head and some tuna.

He then punched a hole in the ground, large enough for two men, and removed the edges using his heat vision, the new perfect crater on the ground could serve as a place to sleep, more comfortable than just empty ground.

 

 

Chato then returned, he had two big pewter cups and two small ones; the big ones had instant ramen, and a spoon, it might not have been much but it was something, and the small ones had coffee, not road coffee like Clark expected, but some actually good coffee.

They sat beside each other, both slurping noodles, and drinking somewhat decent coffee. 

 

"Does...does this place look strange to you?" Clark asked.

 

"Yeah, a little bit" admitted Chato. "More than anything looks familiar, it sort of resembles my old house, the one I...y'know a house"

 

Clark knew then what he meant, the familiarity of this place brought Chato some sort of bad memory...he could understand.

 

"Alright then, when you finish your noodles, I made a place to sleep, I couldn't find anything soft so it is the best thing I've got"

"I've been in prison, homie"

"Yes, I know, and I've been homeless, regardless, It's not going to be comfortable"

"Aight, I get your point. anyways...good night homes, we have a hell to scape and a world to save, we will need our sleep"

"Yeah, we will...good night Diablo"

"Good night Clark"

 

After they finished their coffee and their noodles, they both accommodated themselves into the hole in the ground, ready to sleep, so they could gain back their strength...tomorrow they would need it. 

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back?
> 
> so yes, I just wrote an entire chapter of two dead superheroes where they get coffee and noodles and a place to sleep...give it time, soon the feathers will be roughed.


	5. Blankets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised that there would be more action in this chapter, but it somewhat turned into an analysis of their lives...I know, sue me.

Chato was always warm, his body was always warm enough for him, he would never need a blanket or a blazer or anything to keep himself warm.

his core temperature was enough to keep him warm even if he was buck naked swimming in the artic.

Most men would die from the cold, most men would not be able to stand it, some men would hold themselves but still freeze, some men would die of hypothermia and some other shiver and struggle to keep their body heat...

But Chato was always warm, his blood was warm, he didn't need a shirt, his own blood was warm enough for him.

 

Still, the blanket on top of him was welcomed regardless, it made him think of his childhood memories, somehow it made him sleep easier. It made him think of his wife and his children, he missed them...he needed them. He thought of them every day, and blankets were in some of his sweeter memories with him, reading to the children in their beds, speaking to his wife in his bed sheets...discussing the possibility of getting a third child, maybe he would retire from his gang, buy a white castle or a restaurant that he could leave his children, talk about college and maybe they could have gotten a dog, or move to a nicer neighborhood, maybe he could give his little girl a decent Quinceañera party, he could teach his son how to shave; all of those thoughts were with him every time he had a blanket, in Goldengate State the first thing he got (after his uniform) was a blanket for his cell, then he got a pillow and some shoes. 

In prison, it was the reminder that he had fucked up, the fucking blanket, and the stupid bedsheets. 

He associated those sheets to the life in prison, the gangs, the "one of them", the struggle of power and powerlessness. 

In Belle Reeve, he had none of that, no shirt, no uniform, no bedsheets and no blankets.

 

This blanket, however, brought him another memory...dying...

 

he remembers clearly blowing up, he remembered the feeling of not feeling his body anymore, feeling, for the first and last time...too much heat.

 

 

 

Clark could feel cold sometimes, he liked it, but part of being invulnerable was that his skin could not feel as much as he would like, he could never tell if something was too soft or too rough, for him nothing ever felt as cold as he'd like or as warm as he'd like, he was yet to find out how ice cream and coffee and tea and snow felt to other people... 

and blankets were no exception to that.

 

He had no way to know if it was too soft or not if it was too rough, it did, however, bring him some happy childhood memories...

 

he remembered when he was a kid, it was perhaps his sixth or seventh winter on earth, but it was definitely the first Christmas he remembered... he remembered how frozen the farm was, everything was white and covered in snow, none of the animals were out, they were all inside their barns to keep themselves warm, it was the first time his mother allowed the dog to sleep with Clark, she stated that he could sleep in his room not his bed, but the dog slept in his bed regardless, his father sang the whole day, for some reason he just sang and smiled...And Clark, just went out, perhaps to see rabbits and snowbirds.

 

He walked, for a while looking for birds and rabbits and maybe even Santa...instead he found a toad, froze up and motionless, he got scared and ran towards the barn, he wanted to save the toad, maybe if he gave it some heat it would survive...so he went to the barn, he didn't use his heat vision in fear of hurting the toad by accident, after all, it happened before...so he held it with strength in hope that the ice would melt and the toad would come back to life.

 

He ended crushing it.

 

it was the first time he had ever killed anything, and worse he had been trying to save it, he stayed in the barn crying for a while, until his mother came through the door, she had been looking for him to start the dinner and she found him there crying...

The blanket felt similar to the blanket his mother brought to comfort him that Christmas.

 

 

 

A weird noise interrupted their thoughts...Chato threw away his blanket and stood up, he touched his hand to see what lay ahead of him... Clark was about stand up, Chato instead put his hand in his mouth to tell him not to make a noise, Clark nodded his head.

 

 

The noise started again...both prepared to the worse.

 

 


	6. It should

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It jumped on them, they had to throw aside the sheets to stand up and fight.
> 
>  
> 
> It should be easy; Clark was until very recently the most powerful man on earth, he had been capable of leveling buildings, of lifting rockets and pulling ships the size of the RMS Titanic, in a clean fight he was almost invincible...almost, as his situation proved, but a tough fighter. And Chato wasn't a bad fighter himself, he had Barrio, he was tough even without his powers, and being able to burst into flames or to turn into a 10 ft tall demon wasn't too much of a disadvantage.
> 
>  
> 
> It should...but it wasn't.
> 
>  
> 
> in which something attacks Clark and Chato in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the shortest chapter in this series so far, enjoy.
> 
>  
> 
> To my one and only reader, if you are still reading this, please tell me what you think of these new chapters, thanks.

It jumped on them, they had to throw aside the sheets to stand up and fight.

 

It should be easy; Clark was until very recently the most powerful man on earth, he had been capable of leveling buildings, of lifting rockets and pulling ships the size of the RMS Titanic, in a clean fight he was almost invincible...almost, as his situation proved, but a tough fighter. And Chato wasn't a bad fighter himself, he had Barrio, he was tough even without his powers, and being able to burst into flames or to turn into a 10 ft tall demon wasn't too much of a disadvantage.

 

It should...but it wasn't.

 

 

 

The creature was impossibly fast, it was able to throw away anyone who somewhat tried to even react to it; Clarks's eyes were already glowing red when he found himself crashing against the wall of the crumbling memory-house. And when Chato was creating the fireballs in his hand he was also hitting the roof with enough strength that if he were alive, he would have broken his spine.

 

If that wasn't enough the thing was also impossibly strong, so much so that some point it threw away a boulder several times it's size at the unsuspecting heroes...it hurt, a lot.

 

 

 

For a brief moment, Chato considered turning into his more demonic form, but it was unclear to him if the building would stand it if he did, the laws of physics could work differently in that place, but it could also not, and dying while dead would be pretty ironic and humiliating.

 

 

 

Clark, on the other hand, went into beast mode, at least this time he could let loose since he was sure that both he and Chato would be able to survive, plus there was no civilian population this time. However, he was growing desperate...nothing seemed to work in the creature that wouldn't even let them see it.

 

Not his strength, not his speed, not his heat vision, not his freezing breath or his combination of the rest of his powers.

 

The thing didn't need heat vision or freezing breath, it moved faster and it was stronger than him and it could just shift through the walls whenever it needed.

 

 

 

Chato flamed up and quite suddenly, the whole room illuminated, and they could see, for the first time, this creature that attacked them so suddenly, it had a somewhat skeletal face and a body that seemed to be composed only of black sheets...

 

 

-Sort of looks like a dementor- Chato thought for himself.

 

one of the points of its robe caught a little bit of fire now was the perfect time to strike as the creature shifted from attacking them to solving its issue.

 

Clark speed dived at the thing as fast and strong as he could while simultaneously getting his eyes to burn red, he slammed a severely burned creature against the opposite side of the wall...

 

 

It began to scream, it was a high pitched scream that made their ears bleed.

 

 

 

Clark immediately used his heat vision to burn part of its head making a small incision on the forehead of the creature, only to realize it was hollow.

He gestured Chato with his left hand so he could also check for himself. So Chato got closer to the thing there, and in fact, it was completely hollow. It didn’t make a flinch of sense but then again almost nothing in that place did, regardless they had to question whether or not the creature was part of what they constructed or part of what was from their own psyches…or, the more sinister approach, if that thing was part of the terrible evil their host had warned them off earlier.

“Well, it seems like we can’t just nap,” said Clark.

“Agreed” added Chato.

“One of us will have to make watch in case this thing or others like it attack us again”

To which Chato only nodded to say yes.

 They stared at each other for a while, they both were tired but neither could come to sleep just like that, not since their deaths.

They weren’t sure if it was even possible to sleep in whatever world they found themselves in.

 

Finally, after quite some time of staring at each other, Clark simply said.

 

“You should go to sleep, I can take care of it from here”

“You sure man, because you haven’t slept in a long time and, honestly, I  ain't even tired, Ese, besides, you are the strong one, and tomorrow we sail”

“That’s precisely why, if this…thing comes after us again I know the trick, and you haven’t slept either, and we need you”

 

“Aight, you make shift tonight I do my thing tomorrow sounds good”

Superman nodded with a sheepish smile on his face that irradiated with his perfectly white teeth.

“Yeah, that’s good…good night Chato”

“Goodnight”

He said before heading again to the hole that was his bed, he felt a sudden pain, though.

It felt like a knife cut with vinegar.

He removed his sleep shirt to see what was causing the trouble…he realized he had a big wound that slashed across his belly, he could see a deep red and it hurt a lot.

 

He decided to ignore it regardless and sleep after all…he was already dead.

 

 


	7. fading light

The light never changed in that place, it remained static.

There was no way to know if it was day or night, of course, they could not know if such things even existed there, to begin with. However, Clark's wrist watch marked 7:30 AM. which either meant that the thing continued regardless or it was indeed 7:30 AM.

Clark served himself some extra noodles from the previous day, he heat them up using his heat vision so he could eat them, before putting them in a mug, he moved around the noodles with a spoon before finally swallowing all in a single try...they had no flavor, perhaps that was one of the things exclusive from the land of the living, perhaps hell and purgatory was just full of flavorless noodles.

Chato woke up. 

Clark could see the scars of the previous battle in a shirtless Chato, then again he had some of his own...

"Good Morning" said Clark

"Morning" said Chato.

 

Clark gave his comrade a faint sheepish smile 

"I'm afraid I just ate the last noodles and there is no coffee left, but there seems to be some water in the sink"  
"It's aight man, I ain't even sure if we need to eat, we are dead...remember?"

 

to which Clark only noded

"So it seems"

 

Chato went upstairs, while Clark got himself ready, his shirt was ruined so he thought it would have been better to remove it, otherwise he would be walking around with the sort of shitty shirt he used to wear when he was drifting and homeless, he prefers to go shirtless as well, Chato didn't take too much time though, he came down the stairs rushing down with two oversized tee shirts, he threw one at Clark that Clark caught and he put the other one on.

 

"Fat Cavill?" Clark asked when he had already a shirt on.

"Yeah, it's a burger joint, like InNOut and Big Belly Burger, they are, they are good, if we come back to life I'm buying you some"

"Thanks" said Clark, he wasn't a big fan of the shirts but he had to admit it was better than nothing

"Yours say 'Training day'"

"Yeah, it's a good movie"

 

it did not take long before they heard knockings on their door, it was the woman who received them earlier when they broke out of the nothingness, she was carrying a heavy torch and next to her was the short man with flaming eyes, both Clark and Chato were rather happy to see them, but they did not want to tell them about the spectre that attacked them earlier.

 

"You are ready? Good, we shall sail soon enough...the trip to the Isle of portals will be long, but rest assure, you will be back on earth in almost no time"

 

"Thank you" said Chato.

"Follow me please" said the man with the burning eyes.

 

The pair of heroes left the house and followed this man, of whom they knew nothing of, to the boat that was anchored floating exactly where it had been left, the man went first, dropping a ladder so Clark and Chato could get aboard, or maybe just Chato, Clark could, after all, fly.

 

But regardless they got on the boat through the ladder, into the boat. Once the three men were on board, flaming eyes released the anchor and the boat began to float further away from the ground, towards one of the islands of light that were in the sky.

"Welcome aboard, this will not be an easy trip so first I'd like to establish some rules"

 

he directed his head and eyesight to Clark "I know that you can fly, Kryptonian, but I will ask you not to step out of the boat, there are several islands in the sky and this place is bigger than it appears, if you do get off the boat you will get lost and you will not be able to find your destination, trust me, this place is eternal..."

 

He then redirected his sight to both passengers "Second, unless the situation demands combat, you will remain below deck, there is enough food, water, space, and material to read for both of you, it might not be the Wayne Mannor...but it is enough space"

 

Then the flame in his eyes grew "Third, you will not use your powers below deck, you shall only use them above deck and if the need for fighting arrives, if it does not then, please, no abilities"

 

 

 

Chato and Clark shared a confused somewhat surprised look.

 

"Welcome to Blue Beetle, I'm the Spectre and I will be your guide".

 


	8. Ugly tides Post-Mortem

It was clear that Clark did remember how to handle the tides, Chato on the other hand, had never been on a boat on life.

 

He was then told to remain below deck, but space down there barely allowed him to move, worse yet, everything there seemed flammable; sure it was a ship in limbo, but he wasn't entirely sure that the laws of combustion would not apply there, at times the laws of physics did.

 

Apparently, the afterlife could hold a boat, a house, a decent coffee maker and noodles, but not a Nintendo or even a magazine.

 

He could not understand how any of that worked, he remembered, from his conversation in the nothing-land, that Clark used to be somewhat of a drifter before the Zod incident, before he worked on the daily planet and got a decent apartment in Metropolis, he also talked about the time he worked on a fishing boat, he had to disappear shortly after that but he remembered.

 

The house they had been in looked remarkably like the house in which Chato used to live before going to prison, he came to the conclusion that the limbo created the environment from their memories as living people, how or why exactly, Chato could not know.

 

 

 

Still, it was amusing, from his days in Sunday school he did not remember, ever, such description of hell, Father Gutierrez had told him often "Fire awaits for you in the pits of hell" when he was younger, before his powers manifested themselves, and it had been somewhat ironic, but there was only the fire that Chato himself made.

 

 

 

Spectre went down the stairs of the ship, he stared directly into Chato's eyes with his glowing own, he sat on the available chair, right in front of Chato, this, of course, made Chato feel rather uncomfortable.

 

 

 

"I ain't doin nothin"

Said Chato while Spectre was staring at him.

“I know” said Spectre. He only said that, and not a word less and not a word more, he didn’t need any of those.

It creeped the hell out of Chato, two words and nothing more, Chato himself was never that much of a talker, but in his experience people almost never were that untalkative and quiet unless they had something to hide or were following somebody.

Needless to say, it gave Chato a very bad spine, something about it wasn’t right, this stranger would just take them to the isles so they could go through a window that would allow them to come back from the dead, but nobody explained how exactly it would work, suddenly Chato became very nervous at the prospect.

 

Did they only had to cross the isles, or was there something else? Why were these people truly so interested in bringing them back from the dead.

 

Something wasn’t right and the worse part was that Chato couldn’t exactly point at what, what was wrong? Something was wrong, but why?

 

The Spectre went above deck again, Clark then came down, he had a dumb smile on his face, a sincere dumb smile.

 

“Well, there is no sea and therefore, no smell of sea, there are no lobsters and no fish…it’s not exactly what I’m used to, but I can’t say I didn’t miss this”

Clark sat down on the floor, he removed his jacket, he was wearing his tank top and a necklace with the big “S”

“I’m useless in here, Clark”

“No one is useless on a ship” he said without dropping the smile on his face.

“We will eventually need fire”

“Do we even need to keep warm?”

“I don’t know about you, Chato, but I will go insane if I don’t”

That also worried Chato, he had seen Pet Cemetery, he had read Frankenstein and seen the movie.

What if they came out?...wrong.

“Are you a natural bald?” Asked Clark, the question took Chato by surprise.

“Nah man… I shave, I can also grow a beard, I had like this weird mutton chops for a while, but the tattoos look weird with hair”

Weird question.

“Why do you ask?”.

“I also had a beard for a while, In my homeless years, some in my drifter days, while trying to travel north…you know, trying to get my heritage and all that…I shaved when I returned to Kansas, and after I…’Came Out’ I just kept my face shaven”

“Superman would look great with a beard” said Chato.

“I look great in everything” Clark said smiling, “but what I’m trying to get at…supposedly after you die, your hair and nails grow, I don’t know if the same applies to us because neither of us is…well…human, Pa said that when Grandpa died, he was perfectly shaven and by the time he buried him, he already had a shadow”

“Do you think we can, y’know actually return? And remain…ourselves?”

Clark dropped the smile on his face “I haven’t been able to think about anything else, maybe that’s hell, reliving the way you died over, and over again and allow it to remain in your head for eternity, because this time, there is no ‘Until I die’, because we are dead already”

 

The boat shook again.

 

Chato hated the fucking boat, with passion.

Chato liked to step into the ground, that was part of what made the first limbo so unbearable, there was no ground, no floor, no smells, no colors, nothing.

Boats, in Chato’s mind, weren’t that different either.

 

Chato was a city boy, through and through. he had been born and raised in L.A. when he was in Louisiana, he was in prison, he had never seen the fields or smelled grass that didn't smell like concrete, cigarettes or weed, and he had never seen the sea either, it was strange since L.A is a coast city, but he had just never been to the beach.

 

Being also a being of fire, he felt like there was a natural aversion, and thus, Chato had never been on a boat.

 

 

 

But Clark had.

 

And it had almost killed him.

No one knew if Kryptonians could drown, "Does he breathe air?" Chato caught himself thinking..."Did he breath air?" he corrected himself, after all, they were both dead.

 

"I think so" answered Clark almost as if he read Chato's thoughts..."I do think I almost died then, although...I would have preferred that to getting stabbed" he said.

 

"How did you know what I was thinking"

 

"You haven't left deck"

 

"He told me not to"

 

Clark stared at him for a while..."How did YOU die? by the way... if it's not too rude to ask" Chato knew how Clark died, even in Belle Reeve he had access to newspapers, it wasn't one of the topics they had discussed post-mortem so far, partly because Clark was famous and Chato...He doubted the squad would even remember to mourn him, and while the memory still sort of hurt, it made him happy to know that someone cared to ask.

Maybe not the spectre, maybe not society, maybe just another dead man trying to get back to the land of the living who enjoyed the goddamn boat a little bit too much.

 

Chato gave a big smile with his sheepish answer "It turns out, fire CAN kill a dragon, homes"

 

 

 

 


	9. Voyaging

Someone had to keep watch, that had been the agreement.

Someone had to remain awake to keep watch, the "Dementors" or whatever was their real name could appear one day or another.

And someone had to keep watch, and it was Clark's turn to sleep, Chato was losing color and gaining some sweat, it was strange...a dead man with sea sickness that continued to grab his belly like trying to prevent blood from pouring out, blood that he no longer had.

It was also strange that Chato could have gotten sea sickness since they weren't at sea...exactly.

Never the less, he felt it, and the wound kept hurting

 

In theory, they could have both slept, but neither of them trusted the Spectre too much (and the feeling looked mutual) so they maintained the same deal they had after the Dementor attack.

-They are called Rembrants- Suddenly said the Spectre, as if he could read his mind.

-The things that attacked you and your friend, they are called Rembrants...or Ghosts if you prefer it-

-I was calling them Dementors-

-They are not Dementors-

 

Chato could feel the intense stare of the Specter, the same way he could hear Clark's attempts to snore. The spectre had been on him like a hawk, Chato had no idea why, true he had a criminal record, a heavy one that sent him to Belle Reeve, some place that required him to be so bad and dangerous that El Chapo Guzman wasn't deemed dangerous enough to warrant the need to send him there...

 

 

But he was a dead man! And if the Spectre was not lying, he should not have issued his hatred in any kind, Chato had heard that they had received Caligula, Vlad Dracula, Genghis Khan and General Zod, compared to them Chato was a Saint, and he died trying to save people, he wasn't even the worst person in the Suicide Squad; Croc liked to eat people, Deadshot killed people for a living. Chato died saving them, and quite possibly the world, all he really wanted after that was to spend eternity alone in some hole free of judgement and free of people judging, only he and whatever he had to atone for; he never wanted to journey to come back to life, or to cling to a boat or to have a ghost judging him without understanding why.

Chato realized that his hands had turned on fire, and he put out the fire discreetly.

-What's your problem with me Esse?- He finally asked, trying to not clench his fists or get angry.

-What are you talking about-

-Don't lie to me, I have noted how you stare at me, I Ain't looking for a fight but I could do with a little of respect at least, or if not that like a decent explanation-

The Spectre stared silently at Chato, not a word, only a look of judgment he could somehow give despite his flaming and glowing eyes.

-Ain't you gonna tell me?-

-You are a demon- he finally said, that warranted an arched eyebrow from Chato, A demon? what the fuck did he mean with that?

-I ain't no demon, I'm just a metahuman...and brown-

-I can feel it in your aura, better than you can, your habilities are not the result of genetics, you are half demon, you have a bad aura in you, you must have noticed at least once...the thing inside you...don't think for a second that I don't know what that is, and you can manifest it because you are half demon, If it were for me I would never let you leave the realm of the dead, never, but the Old Gods commanded me to release you, you and the Kryptonian, whom I wouldn't release either, if it weren't for...for Darkseid...you would be stuck in limbo or hell-

-I never asked for this either- said finally Chato.

-When I sacrificed myself, I meant it...-

 

Suddenly the boat began to shake more, the previous conversation ended then.

-Go wake up the Kryptonian, we have company-.

Chato looked through the window, there were thousands of Rembrants getting close to the ship, they were all incredibly slow, and neither seemed in a rush, but they were coming.

 

Quickly Chato went to wake Clark up, he needed them soon.

 

 


	10. Swarm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shit!” said the gigantic fire skeleton-demon.
> 
> “We gon’ die again, right?” 
> 
> “You have to remain positive!”
> 
> “Ay! Hermano! If…If I evaporate or somethin and my soul is destroyed or whatever, I want you to know…”
> 
> Don’t even say what I think you are about to say. Thought Clark for himself, though he realized that he too should be saying his farewells.
> 
> “It was an honor for me too,” said Clark, almost expecting both to die there and then.
> 
>  
> 
> Clark and Chato's boat travel is interrupted by several Rembrants, one was tough enough, but this doesn't seem to end.  
> ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Rembrants were approaching very slowly.

Clark knew that was the reason why he was woken up, The Spectre was keeping his cool, only slightly clinging to the handle of his dagger as the creatures were slowly approaching, but Chato was panicking.

Clark could hear his heart rate rise (how could he do that?), he could smell his sweat (How can a dead man sweat?) And he could see his hands producing sparks of fire like those of old lighters instead of just burning up like they usually did; Clark himself was also sweating and his heart rate was also rising, but he tried (perhaps in vain) to keep his cool.

"Clark, Homes, the...the dementors are here" said Chato under his teeth, almost as if he was trying to avoid the Rembrants to look at his movements, those things certainly managed to hurt them last time.

Clark stood up as slowly as he possibly could.

"I told you already, those are not 'Dementors'" Said the Spectre.

"This ain't the time or the moment to correct me, homes! they are coming here and they **CAN** hurt us".

Clark wasn't sure if those things could hurt the Spectre, but he knew damn well that they _**definitely**_ could hurt him and Chato all to well from personal experience; it made him wonder if a dead man could die, yet again, and he feared the possible answer.

"Chato, can you light up?" asked Clark.

"I'm trying! Can you use your heat vision or something?"

"I can...If I tell you to dodge, you dodge...Spectre, can you do anything?"

"There are quite a few things I can do" said the Spectre.

The first rembrant reached the boat and grabbed it with a hand, the part that its hand touched dissolved almost immediately, Chato threw a fire column at it, and suddenly; the Rembrants came rushing a little faster, eating away parts of the boat.

Clark began punching a few rembrants and cutting down with his heat vision a whole lot of them more, Chato threw huge fire columns at those things, he lit himself on fire too and not only did he threw fire columns at those things, he also began to punch them, but they began swarming them.

For a little while, the Spectre was no were to be seen.

 

The rembrants were eating more and more of the boat as they grabbed more and more of it; they didn't chew or opened their mouths, they just touched things that dissolved, a good portion of the bow of the ship was already missing and if Clark and Chato hadn't been cutting down rembrants, there would have been no bow on the boat.

 

 

Chato transformed, Clark had never seen his traveling companion in the form he was now; Chato stepped out of the boat and transformed into a gigantic fiery skeleton with horns and feathers, and for a few glorious seconds…he managed to keep the rembrants apart, it both amazed and terrified Clark.

It amazed Clark how this man, so timid and peaceful and self-kept could unleash such fury, it somehow allowed Clark to sweep through more rembrants. A swirl of gust and laser heat vision, cut through the almost endless swarms of rembrants that were eating more and more of the boat away, tough eventually they just kept their ways, and the more dementors they cut down the more wraiths that kept appearing.

One of those had been too hard on them not too long ago, and now there were so many that the horizon had no longer been visible, the same infinite horizon that seemed endless also not that long ago, the same horizon that contained the island-portals to every conceivable dimension and afterlife, and that was even after both Clark and Chato cutting as loose as possible by either and both.

 

Worse.

 

Spectre was nowhere to be seen.

 

“Shit!” said the gigantic fire skeleton-demon.

“We gon’ die again, right?” he asked while he was trying his hardest to keep as many rembrants away from the boat as possible.

“You have to remain positive!” said Clark, with eyes redder than they had ever been in life, cutting through several more rembrants, though not nearly enough of them.

“Ay! _Hermano_! If…If I evaporate or somethin and my soul is destroyed or whatever, I want you to know…”

 _Don’t even say what I think you are about to say._ Thought Clark for himself, though he realized that he too should be saying his farewells.

“It was an honor for me too,” said Clark, almost expecting both to die there and then.

 

Suddenly, the Spectre, with a sword.

With a single blast of energy, the Spectre cut down the biggest line of rembrants that anyone had cut down, with a few more swings of his sword and the energy blasts that accompanied them he managed to slice down most of the rembrants.

 

Clark and Chato both managed to cut down a few more rembrants before Chato had to turn back from exhaustion and Clark’s heat vision was left almost without energy, but the remaining twelve rembrants scattered as soon as this was over and fled.

Clark was exhausted, and he could see that so was Chato, but he also could see a big enough wound in his belly, from the dementor’s attack, he gathered.

 

Diablo was about to fall from exhaustion and Clark rushed to his partner to provide walking support.

“Thanks, man” Said his tattooed, companion.

“No problem, buddy”.

Both looked at the boat, it was completely ruined, destroyed, Clark almost wished it had crashed against an Iceberg rather than dissolved by Rembrants, what little remained of it looked like swiss cheese from all the holes and eaten away edges.

 **“Were the hell have you been!?!?!?”** he asked Spectre rather upset, the Captain had abandoned his ship; In life Clark didn’t spend that much time in the sea to become an expert as he left the fishing crew rather early due to the oil ring incident, but from what little he remembered…the captain of the ship (in this case, Spectre who was the owner of said ship) should have always remained with the ship, the captain never abandons his ship, and Spectre had done so when the both of them needed him the most.

Granted, they weren’t really a crew, but to be abandoned in such dire situation…

“I was busy”

“Clearly, as were Chato and I, defending **YOUR** ship, while you were gods know were doing gods know what, speaking of your ship…is _**any**_ of it salvageable?”

 

The Spectre shook his head.

“Though I might be able to rebuild it enough to make the journey”

 

“Ay! We need to set foot first” said Chato using most of his strength to utter those words under his breath, lucky enough…they heard him.

Spectre pointed at an island with his finger.

“There! I will carry the remains of the ship, Kryptonian you carry your…friend…to the Island, we will be there until I finish repairing the boat and Diablo gets back on his feet, sound good?”

 

Clark frowned and stared at Spectre, where the hell had he been? Chato was weakened after the fight, Clark had used most of his heat vision juice (which he thought wasn’t possible) and this dude had just disappeared.

“Deal?” asked the Spectre, he had no expression on his face and his eyes betrayed nothing, he put the remains of his ship on his back.

“Lead the way” said Clark.

They both began walking towards the floating island.

“You are going to be fine” Clark said to a passing out Diablo.

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Island of surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \--Thanks!—
> 
> The stranger said.
> 
> \--How long have you been here?—asked Clark
> 
> \--Since I died— answered the stranger

Somehow they managed to arrive at the shore of the floating island.

 

Clark was carrying his fallen friend in his back, even in human standards, Diablo was a somewhat light dude, he wasn't skinny compared to the average man, but skinny compared to Clark.

 

Spectre was dragging what little left of his ship he could salvage, which wasn't much, maybe the fact that gravity laws seemed to be almost non-existent in limbo was what allowed such man to carry such heavy thing in his back, or maybe it was just what he was and what the ship itself was.

 

Whatever it was, Clark wasn't too concerned with the rules science in Limbo since it clearly had none, regardless he was beginning to miss the "Shadow Realm" for lack of a better word...True it was empty and maddening, but his friend wouldn't have been hurt in such place in the first place.

 

Clark carefully dropped Chato in the sandy shore, after he threw himself in the same perfect white and soft sand that covered the rest of the shore.

 

Chato coughed a little, Clark smiled. It was a good signal...wasn't it? it probably meant he was still...conscious.

 

-Relax, Kryptonian, neither of you can die, you are already dead-

 

Clark could feel his blood boiling, he rarely felt that...the same ugly feeling he had when the trucker was stocking the waitress in the bar he worked while he was drifting, the same feeling he had when General Zod threatened his mother, when Lex Luthor did the same, when Batman fought him...he wanted to pierce a hole through Specter’s body.

 

-Good thing you are telling me now! I would have worried less when those things attacked YOUR SHIP! But if you haven't noticed, DIABLO IS UNCONSCIOUS- said Clark, realizing the rising tone of his voice, he found himself clenching his fists, his eyes were beginning to turn red...Calm yourself, he thought.

 

Clark put himself together as best as he could, he gave a deep breath.

 

-Is there something you want to ask?- asked Spectre, probably trying to de-escalate the situation...

 

There were several things Clark wanted to know, why did limbo look so familiar? why the floating islands? why could they get hurt? could they die? why was there Nissin Soup in the afterlife and Fat Cavill burgers? how was it possible to be unconscious in the afterlife?...He had an infinity of questions he wanted to make, and had he not been as angry as he was, he would have made them...at the end he settled for two of them.

 

-What are those things? And I don't mean what they are called...what ARE they?-

 

-Wrights...they are...in the simplest term, ghost-zombies. they are the rotting juice of several souls blended in together...they exist to prevent travelers from going back to life-

 

That didn't sound good, at all.

 

-what did they do to Chato?-

 

-They damaged his astral self...his soul, he will get better...I promise, it will not be too long until he regains consciousness, in the meantime help me get some wood, would you? the fastest we repair the boat, the fastest we can reach our destination and the fastest you two can leave this place-

 

That sounded good.

 

There was nothing Clark wanted more than to leave that place.

 

-I'll go explore the island, you keep an eye on Chato-

 

-Yes- said Spectre in a monotone, Clark did not trust him, not at all.

 

It was obvious that Spectre never liked Chato, and as of now, he was at his mercy. Spectre was behaving in an odd way, he was speaking and acting on manners not characteristic of him. So far he had been aloof, distant, stoic...what had changed?

 

He did not want to leave Chato in Specter’s watch, Clark knew, all too well how much Spectre seemed to despise him, and as of now, he was unconscious. Regardless he found himself without any other choice, they needed to rebuild the boat, they needed to look for a way to get out.

Clark went into the forest, none of the plants there looked remotely like any other plant on earth, they were all so different, Clark could also observe birds on the treetops, all of them golden, literally golden.

As he kept going forwards he decided to pick a few things, using his super speed he grabbed fruit and leaves and left them near Chato and Spectre, that worked as an excuse to keep an eye on Spectre.

Still he returned each time to his exact position, and kept walking a bit longer, there was a lot of wood laying around, sure, but he wanted to use something that would hold the rest of the trip, according to Spectre they weren’t so far from the glowing islands and he needed to reach there pronto.

If what everyone kept saying was true, the earth needed him quickly.

Getting deeper still into the jungle Clark could hear a singing voice, a young man.

Clark secured the good wood he already had to his back and he began to walk towards that voice, it meant they weren’t alone, and whoever this person was, he could probably help them.

Clark tossed around some foliage, and there he was…

This young man was in his late twenties or early thirties, he had sandy blonde hair, and he was wearing a thick leader coat with a wool interior, beige cargo pants, and leather boots, and for some reason, he looked familiar.

\--Could you please pass me that oyster over there? —asked this stranger, pointing over an oyster on top of a rock, Clark noted the small lake in front of them, it had clear blue water and symmetrical rocks, and a waterfall that fell perfectly into the water.

Clark passed the oyster to the stranger.

\--Thanks!—

The stranger said.

\--How long have you been here?—asked Clark

\--Since I died— answered the stranger

\--we have a boat, we will get out of here soon, come with us, help us fix the boat and get out of here—

The stranger turned to look Clark in the eyes, he was much shorter, he looked a lot like a literal poster boy of the boy scouts of America, and he had this bright, warm smile…he looked happy.

 

\--We?— asked the blonde man

\--Yes!— said, Clark,

\--Me and a couple of friends of mine, they need us back home, you should come with us—

The pilot nodded.

\--Thank you, but no thank you, I’m good here, I’ve been good for some time now—

He was at peace.

\--I see—

\--I will, however, join you for dinner, if you would have me, and help you repair your boat, it’s been a while since I’ve spoken with anybody and I honestly sort of miss it—

The stranger ate the oyster and then he decided to follow Clark

–You never told me your name…Mr—

—Clark Kent— said Clark —Born in 1980, died in 2015—

–American?— Asked the stranger

–Not exactly, You?—

The Stranger gave Clark a simple smile –Steve Trevor, born in 1886, 1918, American—

 

Clark began walking towards the shore of the island, Steve was not too far behind him.

They didn’t talk to each other on the way, once they reached the shore and Clark’s camp, Steve helped to accommodate Chato while Clark was lighting up the fire, Spectre was sitting on a rock, watching them from a distance.

They fried some leaves and fruit on a pan that Steve brought with himself and then he told the crew

–Your friend here took quite a hit, he should be fine, he’ll wake up in a couple of days, in the meantime we can work on repairing your ship, soon enough it will be good enough to resume the travel-

-Thanks- Said Clark

-No problem, I'll stay with you for a few days, while we fix this thing-

Clark was glad that he had someone who could help him, someone he could trust.

 

 

That night, Clark managed to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for having pacience with me, I've had a lot of work, a lot of issues, bad luck and depression hit me real hard. But I'm back now, and I'll be writing this, The Return of the Dragons and My own reasons I have


	12. Wrong foot

Chato woke up with a massive migraine, in all his life his head had never hurt so much, his eyes felt like they were burning and thus everything looked blurry and too bright.

It wasn't a hangover migraine, this was much, much worse.

He also noted that for some reason, he felt like he had at least a million ribs broken, and his leg felt twisted and out of shape. Pain...he could only describe pain through his body, and not any other feeling. The last thing he could remember was to be started by not—dementors until they almost run out the nonexistent air out of his nonexistent lungs. His non—existing arms felt an increasing pain that also felt all too real, regardless, he decided to stand up.

With great difficulty he managed to put on leg further and to use his hands to push his body to finally stand up, and once he was up he wanted to find his friend, yet he could not do it without dragging his leg, and in each step, he felt the sudden and sharp pain of his thousand broken ribs.

In the horizon, he managed to see a man he did not recognize caring some planks of wood in his back using a fishing net. with his remaining forces, Chato forced himself to walk, he would not let anyone steal the boat, his friends needed him back on earth and he had to be rebirthed, his world depended on it.

When the sandy blonde man saw Chato he too began to yell, to someone far away.

 

—WHO ARE YOU, WHERE IS MY FRIEND? —

Asked Chato.

He began to torch, as he got closer and closer (if very slowly), to the blonde man.

—WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO OUR BOAT? WHERE IS MY FRIEND? —

—Calm down! — said the blonde man making a weird gesture with his hands.

Chato, even with the pain in his body as great as he was got close enough to grab the blonde stranger from his shirt, his other hand flaming as were his eyes.

He was about to roast this man until he heard a familiar voice far away from where they were standing.

—Chato? —

He asked, before rushing to him and squishing whatever he had left of life out of his lungs in what was perhaps the tightest possible hug ever given in the underworld, as his flames turned down.

He was quite happy to see his friend, but he did not wish to lose all the air in his lungs before he came back to life, he would need that there.

 

—Clark, Amigo, I need to breathe!!—

Clark let go of him and immediately, Chato felt even more bones shattering and he fell into the sand, where he picked himself up again, so he would be able to walk. Chato then turned an apologetic look to the blonde stranger who was caring the wood, he was sorry, deeply sorry, but he had also been worried about his friend...

—Chato, this is another good friend of mine, his name is Steve Trevor, we met while you were knocked out, he’s helping us fix the boat and he make’s a killer oyster stew—

Chato’s look turned into that of a scolded puppy, he had no idea this man was his ally, he had no idea this man was a friend and he had just attacked him.

—We’ve met, I…I am terribly sorry about what happened—

Steve just sort off smiled, laughed and shrugged, he wasn’t angry about it, which made Chato feel even guiltier, he almost burned off his astral body and this man was just shrugging it off.

—Meh, it happens, had it been any of my crewmen…I would have lost my temper too—

 

Crewmen? Chato used to have crewmen, the squad, whatever they were, they were sort of like crewmen too, in a way, and Chato was here, so none of them would be.

—Crewmen, huh, you have a squad? —

Steve laughed, they both noticed that Clark had left them to talk and to collect logs; or perhaps to watch the Spectre, should he do anything too shady.

—I Had, I’m dead, remember? —

—Right, right, but you know what I mean—

Steve looked at the edge of the island, they weren’t too far from the portal islands, and if that Island were surrounded by water it would have looked almost like Themyscira, almost, still not quite.

He grabbed a stone and threw it into the abyss.

—They are all here, it happens eventually to everyone, doesn’t it? I spoke to all of them, apparently the war to end all wars was followed by another war, where my friend Charlie went to “a better life”, which means this tiny little island; then my friends Sam, which is terrible because he had two little girls by that time, he still doesn’t speak to me…Chief did manage to reach old age, but…not greatly and Diana…I just hope she can find happiness …I died with honor, or at least I think I died with honor, I don’t regret how I died, I just wish I had been there for my squad after, you know when they needed me—

Chato couldn’t help to feel bad, he wondered for a few seconds if he would find his wife and kids in here and somehow, he wished for that not to happen, after all, how could he face them after all? And if he came back, he would have to look after his own squad.

Their thoughts were interrupted when Clark came back, he was chirping, glowing, somewhat happy.

—The wood in this Island is tougher than it looks, we are almost finished with our boat, I imagine it would take at least like…three or four moons more and then we can sail again—

This time it was Chato who hugged Clark.

—Wow, I thought you needed air—

To break a little the tension made by all the sad talk Steve asked something quite suddenly

 –You hungry? —

—Yes, actually—

Steve smiled, he knew something, he knew a place.

—Good, follow me—

That took Clark by surprise a little bit, all the time they had been in the island they had taken coconuts and Oysters out of the rocks, they were everywhere, and they were easy to get, at least a little bit easier than the instant ramen of the ghost town.

Never the less they followed Steve across a path of rocks, many of which glowed, they glowed a purple light they had never seen before, and they followed him across a lot of strange vegetation they had never seen before that twisted into strange shapes and glowed in rare colors.

After a few miles of walking across the island, they finally reached what looked like a waterhole.

A tiny, tiny waterhole of only two meters of radius in the perfect shape of a circle and yet Steve just cannonballed into the thing, Clark later did the same and while Chato feared that wouldn’t be a great idea for him (his whole thing was fire after all) he later did the same, they both realized that this waterhole was very deep, deep enough that they could swim far into away and lose sight of the hole and still be a long time to go, among a rocky formation Steve found a spear with moss he just grabbed and threw at some sort of one eyed giant purple starfish running it through…he then swam back to the surface carrying back the huge starfish.

They later roasted on a campfire in the beach, along with some mangoes, and some marshmallows that appeared to grow out of the trees, and after eating their fill, they decided to rest for the night, they did so in the almost finished boat instead of camping like they used to.

Close together, for like a family.

And while the three friends were sleeping, the Spectre was watching them carefully.

 


	13. Raising Anchors

The following morning, they all decided to sleep a little bit longer.

 

They had already worked a week or so repairing the boat and while it was not quite looking like the original, they had all done a pretty decent job considering that they were not supernatural entities of Limbo.

 

Chato had counted the days by following his watch that for some reason still worked and carving a strike in a stone every time a 24-hour mark had passed on his watch.

 

Steve woke up early that day, after walking shortly around the shore and collecting some sort of decoration for the now finished boat, Clark was the second to wake up; ever the farm boy, his habit was to wake up with the sound of a rooster, habit he later had to adapt to other circumstances; as a drifter he would usually carry a glass bottle that would increase the sun light as it touched it, which usually was a bit more late than the rooster sing but earlier still than most people and while he lived in metropolis he would just put in place an alarm that Lois bought him after moving in with her. So the habit of waking up early was engraved deeply into his existence itself.

 

Chato was the last to wake up, he was a city boy, and he used to sleep late and wake up late almost every day; in his first job he worked as a mechanic, so he got used to the noise of auto works, and he would usually only wake up if his uncle put the radio for one of his favorite cumbias; after he got his first not-so-legal jobs he got used to the sound the sirens make, dogs barking and gunshots so he could later sleep through it, and later still, while in prison but before being sent to Belle Reeve, he got used to all matters of sound from the prison he was in.

 

That moment quickly became one of the first moments in quite a few weeks that they had all been able to sleep without anyone waking them up, they noted that the specter was standing still right next to the boat but this made little to no difference, they were about to go home, they were about to cross the sea of emptiness and reach for the light portals in the floating islands and at last, finally, after so much time and suffering...they were going home, back to life, to resurrect and to have a second chance.

 

Before leaving Steve gave both a clay bottle that contained a fermented juice of a fruit that only grew in that place, he called a soul fruit.

It wasn't fancy or very refined and when opening the bottle, Chato saw chunks of fruit still floating in the shining purple liquor, but still...it was something.

—It's my parting gift; there is no barley here to make beer, or apples for cider or even hooch...but this, it taste betters than it looks and it is much, much more than this dead guy thought any version of the afterworld would offer— Said Steve almost apologizing for the gift.

 

Clark just hugged him, followed by Chato who was hesitant at first but later hugged him too.

—It's ok...we will miss you Steve— said Clark, almost in the verge of tears, though careful not to spill Steve's gift.

—One last thing— said Steve Trevor to the two men…

—Anything! — Said Chato, still with the memory of their first encounter fresh in his mind and the guilt of his actions still on his heart.

—There is this girl, a princess, a literal princess…She must be pretty famous by now…anyways, gorgeous woman and literal demigoddess…love of my life…if you see her…just tell her I love her, tell her I ment everything I said to her, she’ll understand, tell her that I don’t know if she saved the world but she did save me, tell her…tell her it wasn’t her fault, tell her I would do it again and tell her…I love, _loved_ her—

Steve Trevor’s words were sweet, nice and quite sad.

Chato had no idea who did Steve ment, but Clark somewhat imagined, he met the woman briefly and even though he couldn’t tell 100% it was the woman he was thinking of, he still thought the chance was pretty big.

—Consider it done! —said Clark. Steve’s baby blue eyes and white smile showed both gratitude and genuine happiness.

Steve Trevor then gave Clark and Chato one last hug; a strong hug, like he was trying to attach himself to them and not go, like he was trying to have them as anchors to prevent him to go with the current; and returned slowly to the jungle, and while he was walking away, Chato and Clark were exchanging a few looks.

That had been their best friend for a short period of time, they knew him for much shorter than they had known Spectre and still, he was closer to them than Spectre would or could be. He had almost let Chato die, again, and he had been cynical and cruel all the time they had been around him, neither was sure if they could trust him.

After a while they decided to board the ship again, and on their way to reach it; Steve Trevor’s friendly stare was exchanged by the Specter’s hostile and cold, and at times downright cruel look.

—No unfinished business in this land? —he said in a mixture of bitterness and sarcasm that was unusually cruel even for him.

—Nah, we good, no unfinished business with us, how about you? —said Chato, this time a bit angry and irritated himself and barely civil.

—We better leave shore now—Said Clark, trying to break the tension with the Spectre but still quite upset himself, during their stay on the Island, he had barely been any help, he had been hostile with Chato and he didn’t even flinch when Chato was knocked out.

—Good, you two get below deck, there is something to eat in the fridge, I’ll raise the anchors we are leaving soon—

Clark had to repeat his mission in his head, make sure he and Chato reach the shiny island, come back to life, save the world, return to his friends and family, try not to die again. Perhaps it would be easier if he wasn’t so tempted by the idea of punching a giant hole in Specter’s head.

—Raise anchors then—he said.

—Raising Anchors!!!—yelled the three men on the boat as they were in fact doing that and leaving the shores of the island where they had spent too many time.

The world needed them, and they did not have the time to be dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you read this...thank you, and thank you for having such patience with me.
> 
> I am a college student in adition to have depression and a lot of things to do, so it does mean a lot to me when you have patience, I do not always have the time or mood to write but I try to do so.
> 
> Also, thank you for reading it regardless. As you might see, I'm not yet Gabriel Garcia Marquez or George RR Martin in terms of writing so...thank you if you feel my fan fic is worthy enough to be read, and I would much appreciate if you left any comment down below (as long as it isn't offensive or rude) I accept critisism and I would love to check out your thoughts.


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